Abstract

With the commencement of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
1996, the focus of the private law has increasingly shifted from parents to
children. This has not only been the case under South African law but also
according to International Law. According to this new legal paradigm, many
calls have been made to abolish all forms of corporal punishment by parents
of their children. There seems to be wide consensus that the common law
authority of reasonable and moderate chastisement has become irreconcilable
within a modern value orientated constitutional dispensation. Notwithstanding
the fact that political powers are undecided on whether to prohibit all forms
of corporal punishment on children and that society is not informed or trained
on alternative educational measures, it is submitted that the application of
corporal chastisement, even in the private family environment, has become
unconstitutional. Such a form of punishment should thus be declared invalid
and relegated to a relic of our legal past.